View: Worrying Allardyce comments on West Brom players makes Jan signings inevitable
West Brom manager Sam Allardyce has issued a worrying assessment of his Baggies squad, that makes a raft of January arrivals seemingly inevitable.
As reported by the Express and Star, Allardyce claimed that his players must become stronger mentally in what is a truncated Premier League campaign.
Speaking about his approach during the second half of the season, Allardyce said: “What they have to do is to get stronger in the mind. You can do many, many, things when you’re strong in the mind – it can make you run further and faster.
“They’ve got to get that determination inside them, and when they feel tired they’ve got to fight that and say ‘I’m not tired, I’m going to run faster, I’m going to run again, I am going to try my best, I am going to keep going’.”
They are comments from Allardyce that will not exactly inspire Albion supporters and point towards potentially a number of January signings.
If the current crop of players at the Hawthorns cannot prepare themselves mentally for a relegation dog fight after 16 games, will they ever be able to do so?
As Allardyce went on to allude in his comments, any fitness concerns that his staff may have with the players can be easily solved by merely reevaluating the training or picking up more minutes overtime in a run of games.
Concerns over mentality are not such a quick fix.
It came as no surprise to see Albion linked with several players that Allardyce has worked with previously, such as James Tomkins and Mamadou Sakho.
Both are a certain calibre of player with proven Premier League experience – players that Allardyce will know he can trust in such a situation.
However, to hear such comments from Allardyce about the players’ mentality suggests that he has been surprised by the squad and perhaps slightly taken back.
The performance at Anfield should give Allardyce and supporters hope, but they need to see more of that on a consistent basis and not just against the Premier League big boys.
Only time will tell if this is a job too much for Allardyce and his sacred relegation record, but it looks like he will need to get multiple bodies through the door in January to boost the club’s chances of surviving the drop.
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